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One important strategy Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) employ to compete in the global market is to engage in foreign investment, but firms must know how they can perform better in the host country market. International subsidiaries’ performances play a chief role for MNEs’ globalization strategy. The purpose of this paper is to construct multi-level research with parent-level data at the higher level and subsidiary-level data at the lower level.

This study helps capture the rapid growing trend in emerging markets and uses a sample of Taiwanese enterprises and their subsidiaries in China. The data come from the Taiwan Economic Journal database. Precisely, the authors obtain 711 Taiwanese MNEs and 4,458 of their subsidiaries in China.

This study finds among the parent company’s attributes that firm size, firm total performance, depth of internationalization and foreign shareholding have significant impacts on subsidiary performance, while within the subsidiary’s attributes, subsidiary size, subsidiary-owned capital and total investment fund significantly affect subsidiary performance.

In order to capture subsidiary performance, this study uses a multi-level analysis approach with the Hierarchical Linear Model statistic method to separate parent company attributes and subsidiary-owned attributes as two distinct levels. This method fills the gap in the literature by analyzing subsidiary performance and clarifying that foreign direct investment is a multi-level phenomenon that cannot be analyzed using a one-level analysis method.

The authors aim to obtain the optimal combinations of factors from institutional environment adaptation mechanisms and internal resources or capabilities that influence the sustainability of a firm.

The authors develop a new index, called the sustainability index, based on the stakeholder perspective by employing a corporate credit risk index, an evaluation of a firm's corporate governance, corporate financial performance and firm age. The authors then apply both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression Analysis and Fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA) to obtain the optimal models for firms' sustainability.

The OLS analysis shows that the variables including financial leverage, slack, innovation capability, manufacturing capability and human capital that have significant influences on the sustainability of firms. Our FsQCA analysis obtains configurations of several solutions for firm sustainability and concludes that the fit of combinations of institutional factors and/or internal resources and capabilities of a firm is related to its sustainability.

The limitations in our new index include these: first, one may add more key metrics to measure the index; second, the findings do not provide any necessary nor a sufficient condition to get sustainability for sure. The limitations of using multiple regression analysis are that it is not able to reveal the combinations of causal conditions that can lead to the outcome in the real world as well as to the sustainability of a firm in our study. To overcome the limitations, the authors apply fsQCA analysis to identify combinations of causal conditions to a firm's sustainability in our study.

Introducing the sustainability index enables us to find out all factors influencing the sustainability of a firm. The authors’ analysis can be used to identify combinations of causal conditions to lead to outcomes in the real world. Their analysis enables managers to know how to predict the sustainability of the firm. For example, the authors’ fsQCA analysis shows that low marketing capability will lead to the high sustainability of the firm. This information helps managers to make the decision or plan to achieve good results toward their businesses and get better allocate their resources and get a better investment.

The authors’ analysis can be used to identify combinations of causal conditions to lead to outcomes in the real world and enable managers to know how to predict the sustainability of the firm. A correct prediction can assist companies in developing their future operations, which would enhance their competitiveness vis-à-vis rivals during this time of global economic volatility, which, in turn, enables firms to perform better and employ more employees that could help the entire society.

The sustainability index the authors developed in our paper is new in the literature and the findings obtained by both OLS Regression Analysis and FsQCA are new in predicting a firm's sustainability. The authors’ findings are useful for academics, managers and policymakers in predicting and maintaining a firm's sustainability.

Freshwater availability is reducing globally, due to increasing demand with population growth and climate change and is disproportionately impacting developing countries. This study aims to investigate the dynamics of water access and consumption across all regions of Thailand with various characteristics and water systems. Understanding the relationship between institutional, economic and climate variables in Thailand’s water management is important for water scarcity planning. Our paper fills a gap in the literature by examining the determinants of water consumption and exploring potential water management policies.

The authors empirically analyze the determinants of water consumption in Thailand, including institutional, economic and climate variables. The authors use data sets from both metropolitan and provincial waterworks authorities (PWA), as well as economic and meteorological macro-level data. The authors also adopt an auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and a Johansen cointegration test to estimate short- and long-run effects of the variables on water consumption.

The authors confirm a negative relationship between water pricing and consumption and verify a positive relationship between economic growth and water consumption across most regions of Thailand. Furthermore, the authors reveal a clear relationship between climate factors and water consumption and an inverse relationship between income and water consumption in metropolitan area. Findings indicate that authorities, especially PWA, should examine high water use in agriculture and develop regulations to ensure equitable water distribution to sustain economic growth. The authors recommend that water prices are increased within specific income thresholds to prevent impacting low-income families and to secure higher public revenue. In pursuit of environmental sustainability, the authors also recommend increasing public awareness of freshwater scarcity through education programs and investment in water-saving technologies. Differences among regions should be considered when developing water management strategies, which could be monitored through the respective water boards.

This study provides deep insight into the key factors that drive both water prices and water consumption in poor and rich areas. The unique nature of the research indicated that the paper will be of interest to policymakers and the academic community. The findings are relevant for water consumption management in Thailand and other developing countries with similar characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the resource-based perspective with upper echelon theory to examine the effect of top management teams’ (TMTs) managerial resources on international diversification.

The authors sampled 360 listed companies in the USA that operated in the information technology industry in 2009, the year after the financial crisis.

The findings show that TMTs’ tenure has a negative impact on international diversification but international experience exerts a positive impact on international diversification. Furthermore, TMTs’ educational background diversity and international experience contribute to a reduction in the negative effect of tenure on international diversification.

Prior studies have investigated the role of TMT in international diversification, but they pay less attention to the interactive effect of the variety of managerial resources on international diversification. In particular, the authors examined the effect of a variety of management resources on the level of international diversification under the uncertain environment.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the effect of top management team (TMT) cultural diversity on firm performance with a framework that considers such an effect from both cost and benefit perspectives. The paper also examines whether and how diversity management mechanisms such as socialisation and tenure may moderate the effect of TMT diversity on firm performance.

Drawing upon two competing perspectives of resource-based view (RBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE), this paper theorises and tests the potential positive and negative effects of TMT cultural diversity on firm performance with 442 publicly listed IT companies in the USA.

The results supported the RBV prediction that TMT cultural diversity enhances firm performance and socialisation strengthens the positive effects of a culturally diverse TMT on firm performance. However, tenure was not found to be important in promoting diversity gains or mitigating diversity costs. By showing clear support for the RBV prediction of the positive impact of TMT cultural diversity and refuting the TCE prediction of the potentially negative effects, this research strengthens the business case for embracing cultural diversity in TMTs.

This paper contributes to the current literature by developing a more balanced framework to deepen our knowledge of how TMT cultural diversity may impact firm performance, and how the use of socialisation and tenure may moderate the TMT cultural diversity–firm performance relationship from both cost and benefit perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to portray and analyze the importance of learning and knowledge transfer in strategic alliances created in the context of emerging markets, Russia and Taiwan in particular, and to identify the influence of relational capital factors on the effectives of learning in strategic alliances. Strategic alliances are one of the main tools companies resort to learn, acquire and develop new knowledge and skills.

This research is conducted by case study with four international strategic alliances between Taiwanese and Russian companies.

The results showed that the main driver determining the propensity of the companies located in the emerging markets to establish strategic alliances is learning intent. More specifically, the companies are willing to acquire partner’s managerial, marketing and production knowledge and skills. Relational capital created between partners, and presented through the existence of trust, communication and openness proved to have a determinant influence on the effectiveness and quality of learning process in the strategic alliances, especially in the context of the emerging markets. However, there is an inverted-U relationship between the learning potential of an alliance and the strength of relational involvement of the alliance partners, who utilize the certain means to prevent the negative effects of over-embeddedness.

The major contributions that were made by the study are the following: the authors made an attempt to synthesize different approaches and investigate what are the primary factors affecting strategic alliances formation and operation in the emerging markets context. The authors extended the previous research by reviewing, not only the impact of the relational capital on the process of learning among the partners in the strategic alliances but also by analyzing the forces influencing the strength of these ties. The authors further investigated whether the continuous strengthening of the relational ties is necessary and always beneficial for the companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that three sets of variables – derived from transaction cost theory (TCT), the resource‐based view (RBV), and institutional environment – have on choice of entry strategies of multinational corporations (MNCs) from an emerging market.

The sample consisted of 819 Taiwanese firms which were investigated using a national survey, and logistic regression analysis was used for testing the hypotheses.

The empirical findings confirm that the following factors affect this decision: firm‐specific assets, international experience, whether a firm is investing abroad in pursuit of a particular customer, whether a firm seeks complementary assets abroad, and the perceived institutional differences (PEDs) between a firm's home country and the host country. The findings also suggest that PEDs have a moderating effect on foreign market entry.

As MNCs from emerging markets make the decision of entry mode strategies, they must carefully consider not only the related variables in terms of TCT and the RBV, but also the influence of institutional factors in host countries.

This paper explores the modes of entry chosen by Taiwanese firms investing in China on the basis of TCT, institutional environment, and the RBV.

This study aims to explore the augmented reality (AR) effectiveness of museum visiting.

Based on the AR marketing of the motivation model and the inspiration model, the critical mental process and AR were revealed that could increase museum visits. The mixed-methods approach was adopted to analyze the qualitative research and test the model hypotheses to understand the perceptions of the increasing AR marketing of museum visits.

The authors found that inspiration and perceived quality AR are critical to enhancing the attitudinal of museum visits. AR developers can thus focus on utilitarian and hedonic benefits in perceptual augmentation quality to inspire users’ willingness to visit museums.

This study extended the inspiration model through a mixed-methods approach to investigate how AR technologies encourage and leverage visitor experience to increase museum visit intention psychologically.

本研究旨在探索增强现实（AR）对博物馆参观的影响。

基于AR营销的动机模型和启发模型, 本研究揭示了能够增加博物馆参观动机的关键心理过程和AR技术。本研究采用混合方法分析定性研究并测试模型假设, 以了解对增加AR营销的博物馆参观的感知。

我们发现, 启发和感知质量的AR技术对提升参观博物馆的态度至关重要。因此, AR开发者可以将注意力集中在实用和享乐的益处上, 通过提升感知质量来激发用户参观博物馆的意愿。

本研究通过混合方法扩展了启发模型, 研究了如何通过AR技术在心理上鼓励和利用游客体验来增加参观博物馆的意愿。

This paper attempts to examine which theory is best at explaining the geographic concentration in Java, an island in which most of the Indonesia’s large and medium manufacturing industries have located overwhelmingly. Our previous studies on Java have found that there was a stable – albeit increasing trend – and persistent geographic concentration in Java over the period 1976‐1995. Yet some critical questions exist: Why geographic concentration in Java persisted during this period? To what extent relevant theories and empirical literature can be used as an explicit test of competing theories on agglomeration forces? In answering those questions, we compare the three major grand theories of geographic concentration: Neo‐Classical Theory (NCT), New Trade Theory (NTT) and New Economic Geography (NEG). Using the regional specialization index as a measure of geographic concentration of manufacturing industry and pooling data over the period 1991‐002, our econometric analysis integrates the perspectives of industry, region (space) and time. We further explore the nature and dynamics of agglomeration forces underpinning the industrial agglomeration in Java by testing some key variables. Our econometric results rejected the NCT hypotheses and showed that the NTT and NEG can better explain the phenomena. It’s apparent that manufacturing firms in Java seek to locate in more populous and densely populated areas in order to enjoy both localization economies and urbanization economies, as shown by the significance of scale economies and income per capita. The former is associated with the size of a particular industry, while the latter reflects the size of a market in a particular urban area. More importantly, the results suggest that there is a synergy between thickness of market and agglomeration forces. The interplay of agglomeration economies is intensified by the imperfect competition of Java’s market structure. We find that Java’s market structure may restrict competition so that firms tend to concentrate geographically. Instead of providing some important recommendations for local and central governments and practical implications for investors and manufacturing firms, this paper gives empirical evidence with respect to path dependency hypothesis. The finding supports the NEG’s belief that history matters: older firms tend to enhance regional specialization.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of sustainability reporting in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

Twenty unstructured interviews were conducted to understand thoroughly the determinants and motivations of sustainability reporting among Saudi petrochemical shareholding companies.

This study finds that cultural aspects, compliance with international best practice, competitiveness, reputation and legitimacy are common motivations for sustainability reporting in KSA.

This study has significant implications for industry, especially petrochemical and other highly polluting industries, and for policymakers. There are economic benefits to industry in adopting sustainability reporting, including transparency; and it is suggested that policymakers encourage industries to give more attention to sustainability reporting.

This study provides an original contribution to the extant literature on sustainability reporting, and incrementally adds to knowledge on sustainability reporting in KSA, Gulf cooperation council and Middle East North Africa region countries.